


Always Fear

by ThePsychedelicOuroboros



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Alien Babies and Ultrasounds, DNA Tampering, Episode: s08e13 Per Manum, Gen, ScullyAngst (sorta), Unique Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-23
Updated: 2016-11-23
Packaged: 2018-09-01 14:50:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8628556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThePsychedelicOuroboros/pseuds/ThePsychedelicOuroboros
Summary: Scully, from a different perspective. 
This was originally posted on Gossamer in March of 2001, immediately following the network air of Per Manum. Mulder was dead, Scully was pregnant, and CC was continuing to pull the everlasting "did they or didn't they" card, even through flashbacks.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This may not stick with canon completely (does  
> canon even stick with canon anymore?). The whole 'junk' DNA/alien DNA thing is a tad over my head, so please bear with me. 
> 
> No betas were harmed (or even utilized) in the train-of-thought writing of this fic. All fault is mine, but the named characters and the unnamed "you" are Carter's.

You are afraid, aren't you?

I know you are. I don't have to ask. You have been afraid for a very long time now.

First there was the fear of succeeding. Not career l success yet; life success. Success in school. Success at home. Success in society. You had good guides - mother, father, sister, brothers - who helped with the fear then. You knew you would stumble, and you did, but they were always there to catch you, straighten your clothes, swat you on the backside, and send you back out there to try again. To win one for the Captain.

Then came the fear of growing up. Of course, you weren't afraid until it was too late - until you had to grow up. College will do that to a person. You were afraid when you realized how few life skills you really had. You were afraid when you had to make a decision before you had the chance to call home to mother or father for their advice. You were afraid when you failed your first test and realized how easy it could be to lose your scholarship. You were afraid the first time your car broke down in a strange part of town - before the days of trusty cell phones - and you had to find a reliable repair shop on your own. You were afraid of all of the things you weren't prepared for. But you had good friends, good professors, and almost everyone liked you. Your fears became stories - common ground with the others going through the same things. Knowing you weren't the only one was comfort enough.

Fear of uncertainty came next. With a crisp new doctoral degree in hand, the very different world of the FBI was both intriguing and frightening. There was the fear of being able to hold your own among the boys. There was fear of making the wrong decision - what if the FBI was a mistake? And there was the corresponding fear that it would be a deadly mistake. You often found comfort in your faith, then. That cross around your neck kept you grounded.

When you were partnered with him, there was an underlying fear of rejection. Not his rejection so much as the rejection of others. Your bosses, the people who used to be your friends, teachers, everyone else in the Hoover building. He was spooky. You were afraid you would come to share the label, which you did. But it wasn't as scary as you had feared, was it?

No, because by that time, the fear had focused on much more serious things. Conspiracies. Alien abduction. The lingering stench of Morley cigarettes. Donald Atticus Pfaster. Robert Patrick Modell. Cancer. Alien technology. Bounty Hunters. Fear was not paralyzing, most of the time, but it was very real. Very palpable.

You were afraid when you realized how acclimatized you had become to that fear. Fear, after all, had saved your life before. It made you sharp. Kept you honed. Brought everything into startling focus.

Then things started changing. You didn't notice the change until you realized how afraid you were of losing him. How afraid you had always been of losing him. You were afraid of his penchant for getting into life-threatening situations. You were wracked with fear every time you heard the words "He's gone" or "He's dead," whether they be in your dreams or in the A.D.'s office. Not only would there be so much dropped on your shoulders - you have always known you were the only other one who could finish the work, had reason to finish the work. No, if he were really to die, you  
would be alone. And that is a fear so great that you won't even allow yourself to acknowledge its existence. You would be fine, you tell yourself and others. It would hurt like hell, but you would be fine.

Just like you are always 'fine.'

Just like you are telling yourself you are 'fine' right now.

You're not fine. Don't you see? Won't you let yourself see? You are not fine. I know you are afraid. I can feel it in every muscle, bone, synapse, and cell.

Do you know how painful it is that all I have ever felt from you is fear?

Do you know how devastating it is to know that it is not the future or the situation or these past demons that terrify you so?

Do you know how crushing it is to know what scares you most?

That you are terrified of me?

That you are petrified that I will be who I am?

I have heard your thoughts, even heard you voice them aloud once, very early on when I was but 8 centimeters long. You are afraid I am alien. That I am different. That I am not normal.

I am alien. Not in the sense that you expect, however. I am not a gray. Nor do I bleed green. My eyes are not glass-black. I do come largely from another world, but in a roundabout way, and one very familiar to you. I am not something that has been seen on this planet before. Gibson Praise is close, but I am not he. I am the absolute future. Do you see the magic in that at all?

No. All you see is fear.

When you see pictures of me, when I try to smile at you and reassure you, all you see are enlarged eye sockets and a strange shaped head. Your eyes deceive you, yet you trust them as if they have never failed you before. They have! You seem to have forgotten the case with the Siddhi mystic. Your eyes believed you had shot a blonde-headed, innocent little boy, but you didn't, did you? Why did you shoot?

Because your heart told you your eyes were wrong.

Why won't you listen to your heart now?

Because your mind has quieted your heart's voice. Your mind is falling back on its ever-trusted logic. Thinking with your heart is far too risky.

If you did that, you might miss him.

If you did that, you might feel the pain of his absence.

If you did that, you might love me.

And you cannot allow yourself to do that. I am a part of you. Of you and of him. You have seen too much, though. You fear I am a sick and twisted alien scheme. That they are using you as a vessel for their colonization. That someone will take me away after you hear my cat-warbling cries and I will be destroyed.

You will suffer another loss.

You cannot let yourself love me because you do not want to hurt.

So you do the only 'safe' thing.

You fear me.

Except when you let your guard down under the protective blanket of sleep.

Yes, I know about your dreams. I can see those, too. The dreams that mothers always have.

In your dreams, you coddle me. You clutch me to your breast and murmur fairy tales and love whispers against my forehead. You delight in my coos and giggles. And you know no greater joy than stretching out on your bed, nestled against pillows, while I drift in and out of slumber to the sound of your heartbeat.

I am always very still during these dreams. They are my solace, and I have learned that anything - a car engine, a distant siren, a drip of the faucet - immediately raises your guard. Then, even in your sleep, you push me from your mind and silence your dreams, the fear enshrouding you once more.

You are not the only one who is afraid.

I am different. You know that. You just don't understand how. You may never understand how. I am afraid you will always question whose child I really am.

I *am* yours. And I *am* his. But neither of you are normal. You used to be, but your experiences have altered you at a very basic level.

Your abduction. The chip that gave you cancer. The chip that cured it. The bee sting. The antidote he gave you. His exposure to the black oil in Tunguska. His illness while you were in Africa.

This is why I am different. Why I am somewhat alien. I am the combination of all of these things. I have your combined immunities. I have no dormant DNA. I have the same powers as Gibson Praise. The same brain capacity. The same prodigious abilities. I am different from him, however. I am an improvement even over l Gibson for one very simple and very basic reason. Much of the 'alien' talent is directly linked to the X-chromosome.

I have two. 

Will that frighten you, too?

So do you know what my greatest fear is?

What if the reality - my reality and your reality and his reality - is something you can never reconcile?

What if you are always afraid of who I am?

What if I look into the eyes of my mother and see how far away you are from me? How far you have separated yourself from me? What if I see a physical manifestation of what I am feeling now?

So I try now, with all of my might, to make you hear me. That's why I stay so still when you dream. If just once, you would sleep long enough to hear me cry, you could hear me. You could hear what I desperately want to tell you.

I am your child.

You don't have to be afraid.


End file.
